


Peraquialus

by AuditoryCheesecake



Series: A Cheesecake's Tumblr Shorts [20]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cultural Differences, F/F, Fluff, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 20:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8341423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake
Summary: Sera looks at the stars. Dagna looks at Sera.





	

Sera swings her legs, heels tapping against the battlement wall. Dagna leans on the embrasure next to her. Sera’s looking at something out in the Frostbacks, or maybe the very edge of them. The green light of the Breach is distant but just visible, tinging the southeastern sky just slightly green, like the last edges of the sunset behind them. 

Dagna looks at her.

“When I first got up here, it wasn’t the sun that surprised me,” Dagna says, and she knows that Sera’s listening because of the way her ear twitches. She’s got a mental list (actually writing it down seems… creepy, and too easy for other people to find) of the ways Sera’s ears react to the people she’s talking to. She doesn’t know exactly what they all mean, but she knows Sera likes to listen to her talk.

“They talked about the sun, sometimes, before I left Orzammar. I expected it. The sky is wide and sometimes I still think I might fall up into it-- I stayed inside whenever I could for months-- but I was prepared. No one had told me about clouds, but they weren’t so bad. I could spend a long time watching them, like waves.”

Sera’s hand is close to her, splayed out on the rough stone of the wall. Her feet kick out over the steep drop. “No clouds means no rain, right?”

“No rain,” Dagna agrees. “No wind, no snow.”

“You’ve got lamps on all the time, then? How did you know it was night?”

“Everyone went to sleep at night.”

“Get off it!” Sera laughs, and Dagna glows.

“Water clocks, mostly,” she says after a while.

“Huh.”

A guard walks past, torch in hand. The light casts strange shadows on Sera’s face. She seems tall to Dagna, not exactly unreachable but… Sera’s slow to trust. Sometimes Dagna can have a conversation on her own, but she likes it better when Sera talks, too. 

“What happens if a clock breaks?”

“Officially? They don’t. But unofficially it’s just a puddle of water and a pile of machinery. Nothing too exciting. I took a couple apart once, but I wasn’t able to put them back together.”

Sera looks at her now, curious. Dagna looks at the stone of the wall and shrugs.

“I can’t be good at _everything_ , can I? I came topside looking for new things, anyways, not old ones.”

“Found anything you like?”

“Well,” Dagna tilts her head back to look at the sky. “I’ve done things I was told were impossible, worked with some of the most expensive, intricate equipment in Thedas, and there’s this girl, you see? She’s not much for magic, but she’s always got ideas. She fights dragons and brings the best bits back to me.”

Sera smiles at that, not unlike the way she’d smiled when she told Dagna about “ _jars_ , yeah? With bees!” Wide and wild and Dagna’s heart chimes like she’s a water clock herself.

She could kiss her. She could go to where Sera is right now, so close and bright, with her freckles like stars and her laughter like honey. She could put her hands in Sera’s hair-- it must be soft, it must smell sweet and smokey, like her-- and kiss her.

“So it’s not the sun,” Sera says, and Dagna’s hypotheticals take a detour to her lips. “What was the weirdest thing about coming up?”

“The stars.” Dagna points at the brightest one she can see. “There’s so _many_. I read a letter that described them like lyruim-glow, but that’s not true at all. And they’re not like phosphorescent stones either, not if you’ve really studied the stones. They’re something else completely. They don’t glow, they _burn._ ”

Sera follows her finger. “They’ve got stories, y’know?”

“I’ve read some of them.”

“That one’s part of Peri-quazi or something. Voyager. A boat, you see it? That one’s the top of the sail.”

Dagna squints. “I don’t,” she says apologetically.

Sera clambers off the wall and bends down next to her. She puts her face next to Dagna’s and lines their hands up, using Dagna’s pointing finger to trace a shape in the sky. “Like that, yeah? There’s the sail, and the mast, and the ship.”

Dagna tries to see it, she really does. But she’s not convinced it’s there, and besides, Sera’s right _there_ and her skin is softer than Dagna thought it would be, her hand wrapped around Dagna’s like it fits there.

She grins. Dagna can feel the movement. “I always thought it looked more like a bow and arrow. Or a dick.” She sniggers, fingers squeezing Dagna’s hand. “A really frickin’ weird one, but it’s there.”

“I don’t see anything at all, so why not?” She doesn’t want Sera to move. Or-- she doesn’t want Sera to move _away_. Her cheeks are hot where they’re pressed together. “What’s another one?”

“Can’t see it tonight, but there’s a horse… and a dragon! That one’s over there!” She swings them around to face north. “I never used to be able to see the stars, y’know. The city’s always got lamps and torches going at night. But out here, it’s just empty between them and us. Like there’s less smoke and people and rot like that, and it makes it easier to see everything else.”

Sera lets go of her hand slowly, and steps away. Dagna shivers a little. The wind feels very cold on her skin. Sera leans on the wall and faces her, shrugs, a little abashed.

“I get it,” Dagna tells her. Her heart is still rushing. “Less noise to interfere. Clearer readings.” 

Sera grins. Dagna should have kissed her. “And it’s pretty, too.”

“Very.” Dagna smiles back. “There’s nothing else like it.”


End file.
